5 ms·

As an administrator on Wikipedia, I thought the Wikipedia notability criteria is quite leniant about articles which are not that notable, this is evident if you

by yichi 15y ago

As an administrator on Wikipedia, I thought the Wikipedia notability criteria is quite leniant about articles which are not that notable, this is evident if you ever look at what kind of articles gets kept on [[WP:AFD]]. The reason notability criteria is there so not everyone can create an article about their band which sold 3 copies of their CD (edit: Which typically have no realiable sources indicating its existance). If the article you are creating was deleted for not meeting the notability criteria, it means you probably did not source it with a reliable source, and the administartor who deleted it could not find a reliable source about the article you were writing. If you think your article's deletion need to be reviewed, try contacting one of the admins, if your article was deleted by me I would be more than happy to tell you why I deleted it, and if I made a mistake I would not hestitate to revert the deletion.

ramchip 15y ago
> The reason notability criteria is there so not everyone can create an article about their band which sold 3 copies of their CD. I could see this being a problem if the band's name is ambiguous with existing, important articles. But if there's no conflict, how is that a bad thing? Perhaps it would encourage people to contribute more if Wikipedia is a little too lenient rather than a little too strict.
- yichi 15y ago
  Bands which sold 3 copies of their CD tend to have no reliable sources indicating its existance even, with no sources, how is anyone able to ensure that it even exists? (Perhaps I should of reworded that). Notability criteria in a nutshell, basically means, the subject of the article needs to be mentioned by some reliable source. If we had no notability criteria, then we simply have no ways to ensure that the subject of the article exists or even real. Note: I'm pretty much summarizing what's on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:N http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:N If you think I'm biased, please read the policy directly on Wikipedia itself.
  - cma 15y ago
    That's an apologist revisionism take on what Wikipedia notability criteria is.
  - Enlightenment 15y ago
    Another big problem on Wikipedia is people thinking they are overly important and list themselves on School and City articles as notable people. If you don't have a wikipedia article about yourself, then most likely you aren't notable.
  - jellicle 15y ago
    The notability criteria are rather stricter than that. There are plenty of individuals and nouns that assuredly exist but which are not "notable" according to Wikipedia. The criteria wording is "significant coverage" in outside sources, so not only does your band have to have one article written about them, but many, in different outside sources, before Wikipedia won't delete your entry.
    - _delirium 15y ago
      Iirc, the multiple-sources requirement came in because of some cases where there was exactly one "reliable" article on a subject, but it was hilariously bad, like an article on a fringe physics theory in some popular-press magazine that made the mistake of taking it seriously, or an article on a person that paints them in a very negative light. So the worry is that without more that one source, Wikipedia just amplifies bias by parroting what one source says, because the one source gets cited, but the rebuttals don't exist in a citeable form. That can happen with more sources too, but at least there's more chance of sources disagreeing when they're >1. Despite it being phrased as "notability", to me it's the "verifiability" requirement that's a better argument: there should only be Wikipedia articles on things where there exist enough good sources to write a reasonably well sourced article. That's more of a pragmatic than a philosophical decision; not "this subject deserves/doesn't-deserve an article", but rather "we have/don't-have enough sources to write a good article about this subject".
  - starwed 15y ago
    That is why the notability criteria came into existence, but it most assuredly isn't wielded like that any more.
- bane 15y ago
  "But if there's no conflict, how is that a bad thing?" sarcasm alert wikipedia appear to operate under the principle that hard drive space is expensive
ilamont 15y ago
* If the article you are creating was deleted for not meeting the notability criteria, it means you probably did not source it with a reliable source, and the administartor who deleted it could not find a reliable source about the article you were writing.* Define "reliable source." Could it ever include a thread on Hacker News, or a blog post written by an expert in the field?
- gchucky 15y ago
  Given that HN is a forum, HN threads are inherently not notable. Blog posts written by experts are a more grey area. It really depends on what the content you're backing up with the source is. For article notability, it probably wouldn't fly - but for backing up a claim made in the article, it might be okay.
bane 15y ago
The reason notability criteria is there... They're guidelines. Why is that such a hard concept for wikipedia admins and editors to understand? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability "This page is an article notability guideline."
- yichi 15y ago
  Percisely, this is why sometimes articles that do not have very good notability gets included without problems. Wikipedians are biased, like any other people, which means some articles may never get challenged for notability, and some editors may decide to keep the article that would normally fail notability test. Other times, mainly but not exclusively biographies of living people, are often placed with a much higher notability standard, mainly due to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_biography_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_biography_controversy In fact Wikipedia has a page called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IAR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IAR which encourages editors to ignore policies and guidelines that hinders them from improving Wikipedia. (How well this policy is applied these days, I honestly do not know) However, just because notability is a guideline, doesn't mean I should make up a word like "xryzcbslmrwp463vnfd" and define that using Wikipedia. Now, with regards to wikipedia admins deleting articles overzealously, this is indeed a problem in my opionion, and I have undeleted articles that would of be kept if it was actually discussed in Articles for Deletion. The thing is, most Wikipedia newbies, do not know how to contest the deletion of their article, or even know they should be contesting it because the notability is there and can be asserted.
  - bane 15y ago
    I'm taking your reasonable tone w/r to the application of the notability guidelines with a grain of salt. I find it fascinating that whenever a WP deletionist bothers to engage with the world outside of WP, they act like everything they do is perfectly reasonable and justified. Yet you and I both know that the actual reality is that its virtually impossible to add knowledge/contribute to WP these days without having that material deleted...often within minutes. Here's a perfect, relatively recent example http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2215168 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2215168 The original person who nominated these for deletion did it in bad faith, and the admins treated it like a legitimate deletion -- as if he had nominated litter like "xryzcbslmrwp463vnfd" for deletion. However, reasonable people viewed the entire debacle not as cleaning up the litter off the street, but the same as destructive vandalism and were right to do so. Yeah, sure, after an interminable, and completely opaque process, involving two (2) rounds of discussion, the articles were restored (after first being deleted). But in every case involving the original deletion by an admin, there was both ample reference material verifying the content of the articles, and a clear consensus to keep the articles. I bring this up not because it's unusual, or I have a particular axe to grind regarding the inclusion/exclusion of languages in WP, but because it's absolutely typical of the kind of crap not only new users have to suffer through, but even active contributors. Point being, contributing to WP is a waste of time, with hours and hours of work being hauled off to /dev/null at the whim of an overzealous editor with some kind of chip on their shoulder. The current crop of admins and editors on the site seem to be suffering from the mistaken that the point of WP is not to collect the world's knowledge, but to replicate a 19th century print encyclopedia that just "happens" to have a few pop-culture topics in them, completely oblivious to the magnificent advancements of modern technology. And like any in-group, the highly embedded clique of admins and editors refuse to self-police, instead they'll reinforce the bad decisions of their brothers-in-arms. WP had so much promise, but it's taken half a decade for any of the people who actually run the site to finally notice this culture of nepotism, laziness, exclusion and failure that's completely permeated the site.
GiraffeNecktie 15y ago
Prima facie notability only gets you so far when someone is determine to squelch a certain kind of information. I once worked on a WP article about a guy who had written dozens of books, had several biographies written about him, was the subject of any number of articles in major media (e.g. BBC), was generally acknowledged as one of the leading people in his field etc etc. The problem was that he is in an area which is (with some justification) called "pseudoscientific". Now it shouldn't really matter whether or not he's a kook, whether his ideas are valid or invalid because he is, for better or worse, an obviously notable person. But there are people editing WP who just loathe the idea of anything that's not mainstream science staining the purity that is Wikipedia, so the article was nominated for deletion and had to go through a tedious process which should never have happened. If a couple of people hadn't had the time or energy to defend the article it would have died, not because it wasn't notable, but just because a bunch of people wanted to censor it.

by yichi 15y ago

ramchip 15y ago

> The reason notability criteria is there so not everyone can create an article about their band which sold 3 copies of their CD. I could see this being a problem if the band's name is ambiguous with existing, important articles. But if there's no conflict, how is that a bad thing? Perhaps it would encourage people to contribute more if Wikipedia is a little too lenient rather than a little too strict.

yichi 15y ago
Bands which sold 3 copies of their CD tend to have no reliable sources indicating its existance even, with no sources, how is anyone able to ensure that it even exists? (Perhaps I should of reworded that). Notability criteria in a nutshell, basically means, the subject of the article needs to be mentioned by some reliable source. If we had no notability criteria, then we simply have no ways to ensure that the subject of the article exists or even real. Note: I'm pretty much summarizing what's on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:N http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:N If you think I'm biased, please read the policy directly on Wikipedia itself.
- cma 15y ago
  That's an apologist revisionism take on what Wikipedia notability criteria is.
- Enlightenment 15y ago
  Another big problem on Wikipedia is people thinking they are overly important and list themselves on School and City articles as notable people. If you don't have a wikipedia article about yourself, then most likely you aren't notable.
- jellicle 15y ago
  The notability criteria are rather stricter than that. There are plenty of individuals and nouns that assuredly exist but which are not "notable" according to Wikipedia. The criteria wording is "significant coverage" in outside sources, so not only does your band have to have one article written about them, but many, in different outside sources, before Wikipedia won't delete your entry.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    Iirc, the multiple-sources requirement came in because of some cases where there was exactly one "reliable" article on a subject, but it was hilariously bad, like an article on a fringe physics theory in some popular-press magazine that made the mistake of taking it seriously, or an article on a person that paints them in a very negative light. So the worry is that without more that one source, Wikipedia just amplifies bias by parroting what one source says, because the one source gets cited, but the rebuttals don't exist in a citeable form. That can happen with more sources too, but at least there's more chance of sources disagreeing when they're >1. Despite it being phrased as "notability", to me it's the "verifiability" requirement that's a better argument: there should only be Wikipedia articles on things where there exist enough good sources to write a reasonably well sourced article. That's more of a pragmatic than a philosophical decision; not "this subject deserves/doesn't-deserve an article", but rather "we have/don't-have enough sources to write a good article about this subject".
- starwed 15y ago
  That is why the notability criteria came into existence, but it most assuredly isn't wielded like that any more.
bane 15y ago
"But if there's no conflict, how is that a bad thing?" sarcasm alert wikipedia appear to operate under the principle that hard drive space is expensive

ilamont 15y ago

* If the article you are creating was deleted for not meeting the notability criteria, it means you probably did not source it with a reliable source, and the administartor who deleted it could not find a reliable source about the article you were writing.* Define "reliable source." Could it ever include a thread on Hacker News, or a blog post written by an expert in the field?

gchucky 15y ago
Given that HN is a forum, HN threads are inherently not notable. Blog posts written by experts are a more grey area. It really depends on what the content you're backing up with the source is. For article notability, it probably wouldn't fly - but for backing up a claim made in the article, it might be okay.

bane 15y ago

The reason notability criteria is there... They're guidelines. Why is that such a hard concept for wikipedia admins and editors to understand? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability "This page is an article notability guideline."

yichi 15y ago
Percisely, this is why sometimes articles that do not have very good notability gets included without problems. Wikipedians are biased, like any other people, which means some articles may never get challenged for notability, and some editors may decide to keep the article that would normally fail notability test. Other times, mainly but not exclusively biographies of living people, are often placed with a much higher notability standard, mainly due to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_biography_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_biography_controversy In fact Wikipedia has a page called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IAR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IAR which encourages editors to ignore policies and guidelines that hinders them from improving Wikipedia. (How well this policy is applied these days, I honestly do not know) However, just because notability is a guideline, doesn't mean I should make up a word like "xryzcbslmrwp463vnfd" and define that using Wikipedia. Now, with regards to wikipedia admins deleting articles overzealously, this is indeed a problem in my opionion, and I have undeleted articles that would of be kept if it was actually discussed in Articles for Deletion. The thing is, most Wikipedia newbies, do not know how to contest the deletion of their article, or even know they should be contesting it because the notability is there and can be asserted.
- bane 15y ago
  I'm taking your reasonable tone w/r to the application of the notability guidelines with a grain of salt. I find it fascinating that whenever a WP deletionist bothers to engage with the world outside of WP, they act like everything they do is perfectly reasonable and justified. Yet you and I both know that the actual reality is that its virtually impossible to add knowledge/contribute to WP these days without having that material deleted...often within minutes. Here's a perfect, relatively recent example http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2215168 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2215168 The original person who nominated these for deletion did it in bad faith, and the admins treated it like a legitimate deletion -- as if he had nominated litter like "xryzcbslmrwp463vnfd" for deletion. However, reasonable people viewed the entire debacle not as cleaning up the litter off the street, but the same as destructive vandalism and were right to do so. Yeah, sure, after an interminable, and completely opaque process, involving two (2) rounds of discussion, the articles were restored (after first being deleted). But in every case involving the original deletion by an admin, there was both ample reference material verifying the content of the articles, and a clear consensus to keep the articles. I bring this up not because it's unusual, or I have a particular axe to grind regarding the inclusion/exclusion of languages in WP, but because it's absolutely typical of the kind of crap not only new users have to suffer through, but even active contributors. Point being, contributing to WP is a waste of time, with hours and hours of work being hauled off to /dev/null at the whim of an overzealous editor with some kind of chip on their shoulder. The current crop of admins and editors on the site seem to be suffering from the mistaken that the point of WP is not to collect the world's knowledge, but to replicate a 19th century print encyclopedia that just "happens" to have a few pop-culture topics in them, completely oblivious to the magnificent advancements of modern technology. And like any in-group, the highly embedded clique of admins and editors refuse to self-police, instead they'll reinforce the bad decisions of their brothers-in-arms. WP had so much promise, but it's taken half a decade for any of the people who actually run the site to finally notice this culture of nepotism, laziness, exclusion and failure that's completely permeated the site.

GiraffeNecktie 15y ago

Prima facie notability only gets you so far when someone is determine to squelch a certain kind of information. I once worked on a WP article about a guy who had written dozens of books, had several biographies written about him, was the subject of any number of articles in major media (e.g. BBC), was generally acknowledged as one of the leading people in his field etc etc. The problem was that he is in an area which is (with some justification) called "pseudoscientific". Now it shouldn't really matter whether or not he's a kook, whether his ideas are valid or invalid because he is, for better or worse, an obviously notable person. But there are people editing WP who just loathe the idea of anything that's not mainstream science staining the purity that is Wikipedia, so the article was nominated for deletion and had to go through a tedious process which should never have happened. If a couple of people hadn't had the time or energy to defend the article it would have died, not because it wasn't notable, but just because a bunch of people wanted to censor it.